T I MES O F OM AN
T U E S DAY, JU N E 9, 2 0 1 5
A1 3
PERSPEC IVE Why the opposition is shy of fresh local government polls R
KAMRAN REHMAT
While Khan predicts that his party would win even better in a more organised poll, the detractors aren’t exactly feverish about starting from scratch for two reasons; one, they are reluctant to compromise the gains they have made, and; two, the consequences of such actions elsewhere
egardless of the white noise surrounding transparency, local government (LG) polls in the troubled province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KPK), most pundits agree, marks a significant step forward solidifying Project Democracy. Governed by the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) currently, facing the brunt of a united opposition over the fairness of its conduct, the province has been a flashpoint of the ongoing military campaign against terrorism and extremism. The sheer scale of the numbers involving candidates, deployment of law enforcement agencies and the whole gamut of electioneering exercise evoked fears in the lead-up about how it would pan out. There were more than a dozen casualties to be sure, but while these were regrettable, the fatalities were largely related to poll violence. In the not-so-distant past, militants had wreaked havoc with a spate of suicide bombings and killings to stop secular parties like the Awami National Party (ANP) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) from campaigning, leading to their dismal showing at the 2013 general elections. Even though the two parties in government fared poorly going into the polls, the fact that they could not put up a robust campaign did hurt their fortunes substantially. However, while the PPP continues its rapid decline as a political force of national significance, the ANP has regained weight with a showing second only to the PTI. But almost the entire opposition — as well as local level leaders of even its alliance partner Jamaat-e-Islami — have accused the PTI of manipulating the polls and demanded the provincial government’s resignation. The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has even ordered re-polling in some polling stations following complaints of wrongdoing. In one highly publicised case, Ali Amin Gundapur, the burly revenue minister from the ruling PTI, was forced to surrender to the police after it registered a case against him for taking away ballot boxes and manhandling a senior cop at a polling station. Gundapur was however, released after he claimed he did not pick up the boxes to stuff it but was, in fact, stopping a rival candidate’s henchman from rigging. The PTI denies claims of rigging and blames the ECP for failing in its duty to conduct an orderly poll. In a rare rejoinder, the ECP maintained that ensuring law and order was the provincial government’s responsibility and also debunked what it called a “misconception” that it was somehow responsible for holding the entire polls in a single day. The ECP also claimed that given the security requirement in which a large number of polling
staff was involved, it had advised the provincial government to hold the elections in phases. Intriguingly, Imran Khan, the PTI chairman, also uses the same ruse in his defence: that the ECP should have conducted polls in phases if it could not have handled it! Tens of thousands of candidates were in the fray for 43,000 seats spread across cities and villages in 11,200 polling stations. Considering the numbers, and intelligence reports of possible attacks, the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa police, in fact, did a commendable job without any outside reinforcement. Missed in the commotion raised by the opposition over the conduct of the polls leading to a familiar three-way blame game amongst the government, opposition and the ECP was the lack of awareness surrounding new balloting procedures that left the voters high and dry in many constituencies. Clearly, not enough homework was done to wisen them up. But in a daring gambit, Imran Khan has offered the opposition fresh polls, with the willingness of the ECP. Interestingly, as some opposition parties welcomed the move initially, second thoughts also surfaced just as quickly. While Khan predicts that his party would win even better in a more organised poll, the detractors aren’t exactly feverish about starting from scratch for two reasons; one, they are reluctant to compromise the gains they have made, and; two, the consequences of such actions elsewhere. The overriding fear for the opposition’s lack of heart is that it would strengthen Khan’s longstanding demands for fresh elections nationally — an issue over which he has raised such a resonant pitch and agitated so successfully that it forced the Nawaz Sharif government at the Centre to set up a judicial commission headed by the country’s chief justice to probe similar charges of widespread rigging. The verdict, which may make or break Khan politically, is due out soon. The likelihood therefore, is that while the opposition will continue to remain vocal about the alleged rigging in KhyberPakhtunkhwa’s LG polls, it may stop short of committing to a full re-run. The irony is that while these opposition parties have raised a ruckus over the conduct of KhyberPakhtunkhwa polls, two of these — the PPP, which rules Sindh, and Sharif’s PML-N, which rules Punjab — are themselves reluctant to hold LG polls in their provinces, being loathe to the idea of transferring power to the grassroots. The author is a senior journalist based in Islamabad. All the views and opinions expressed in the article are solely his and not of Times of Oman.
FIFA still won’t have a woman president
I
n 2012, the internationally renowned anti-bribery expert Alexandra Wrage was recruited to help reform Fifa. By 2013 she had resigned, publicly citing frustration at an unwillingness to tackle corruption and endemic sexism at the highest levels of the organisation. Wrage has not been the only woman to draw attention to Fifa’s problems with corruption. The dramatic announcement of the FBI’s investigation came from formidable US Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and last year Michael Garcia’s report into corruption identified two female whistle blowers: Bonita Mersiades and Phaedra Almajid. Rocked by the latest corruption scandal, is it finally time for Fifa to appoint a female president? No. Not unless she is the best candidate for the job. Nonetheless, Fifa’s Executive Committee must diversity. Although Fifa have long acknowledged the need for international representation from all corners of the globe, those representatives
LIZ ELLEN
have an average age of 64 and only one female member. This is despite the fact that international management studies provide strong evidence that boards with female representation are less prone to scandals involving corruption, bribery and fraud, and better at responding to crisis. Some will argue that there aren’t enough senior women in football to make a convincing challenge for leadership roles. But for female talent to rise, the industry needs to move with the times, and step away from its misogynistic past. Last year, when Women in Football conducted the first major survey of women’s experiences in the football industry, it found that over 66 per cent of women in the sport had witnessed sexism in the workplace, and 57 per cent had directly experienced it. And of those affected, 89 per cent of women said they would not report sexism because they feared they would not be taken seriously. During the 2014/15 season,
Women in Football reported 61 incidents of sexism, with most of these incidents taking place during the professional game. Concerns about sexism at under the previous executive at Fifa are nothing new. Former President Sepp Blatter was known for his dated views about females, and infamously suggested that women should play in “tighter shorts” to create a “more female aesthetic” and increase the popularity of the sport. Chief Executive of the Irish FA John Delaney recently revealed that he had to ask Blatter to “move on” after he stared at his girlfriend for an uncomfortably long time. Appointing a female president is not going to be the answer to Fifa’s problems. But football as a whole - not just Fifa - must change its appointment and recruitment processes to be more comprehensive in identifying the best talent available. It’s not about token appointments. It’s about appreciating the value of diversity. - The Independent
Debts must be tackled head on HAMISH MCRAE
I
t is time to start thinking beyond Greece — as the Group of Seven summit in Bavaria will this weekend. These economic summits go back almost 40 years, when the leaders of what were then the world’s largest six economies — the US, Japan, Germany, France, the UK and Italy — were invited by the French president Valéry Giscard d’Estaing to the Château de Rambouillet, just outside Paris, in November 1975. The purpose was to discuss how they might pull together to help the world economy recover from the oil shock of 1973-4. Canada, and then Russia, joined later to make up the G8. Now, thanks to the misbehaviour of President Putin, we are back to a G7. Russia, never naturally a member, has been excluded. Although the G7 no longer reflects economic might — China is now the No 2 economy — the leaders do have to confront a comparable threat to that of 1975. Then it was the surging oil price and the threat of runaway inflation. Now it is a developed world overburdened with debts that threatens to undermine the recovery. The disadvantages of the ultra-easy monetary policies that have fuelled the recovery are becoming more and more evident, particularly their impact on wealth inequality within the developed world. Assets have soared in value: the German stock market is up 20 per cent since the European Central Bank started its quantitative easing programme me late last year. But those with few assets have been left behind. The protesters in Munich over the past few days have a point, though I doubt many of them have thought through the link between QE and inequality. Yet tightening policy and raising interest rates sharply might kill the recovery. It would certainly make the difficulties of Greece seem a sideshow, which in the broader scheme of things, of course, it is. Why then have the difficulties of Greece, which accounts for about 0.3 per cent of the world economy, loomed so large? The obvious answer, aside from the fact that many of us know and like the country, is that it exemplifies in extreme form the stresses created by a single European currency, with political expediency trumping economic common sense. Less obvious, and more alarming, is the extent to which debt overburdens the entire world economy. Greece is an extreme example of a global phenomenon.
We all know what has happened here, with the national debt still rising both in absolute terms and relative to GDP. But while the details differ, the same broad pattern applies to almost every major developed economy, as it does to China. Of the large economies only Germany is running a budget surplus, and even Germany faces a problem servicing its debts with a declining workforce and rising ranks of retirees. Similar pressures apply at a personal level. In some countries (including the UK) families have started to pay down their debts; in others this has happened very little. After all, with money sprayed around at near-zero rates by mortgage-lenders, why wouldn’t you borrow more, and pay more, for a bigger house? Too-easy money encourages people to make bad investment decisions, just as too-easy money encouraged Greece to do so when it managed to scramble into the eurozone. So what’s to be done? It is easy to work up a sense of despair, particularly since the world economy faces other headwinds — particularly from demography and the environment. But the experience after that first economic summit is broadly encouraging. It did not of itself fix anything. The humiliation of Britain’s bailout by the IMF followed the next year, and the final burst of global inflation of the late 1970s was still to come. Then followed the long monetary squeeze, led by the chairman of the US Federal Reserve Board, Paul Volcker. High interest rates did for high inflation, but it took the best part of a decade. The good news is that we don’t need high interest rates now, or at least not the doubledigit ones we had then. We do need higher ones, as the bond markets recognised last week, pushing up rates sharply. A rise in long-term rates puts pressure on central banks to increase short-term ones. The IMF wants the Fed to hold off its first rise in short-term rates until next year. The bond markets think otherwise. As rates rise, there will have to be debt relief for those who genuinely cannot pay. That, of course, includes Greece. Lots of great things are happening in the world economy, in particular the use of technology to make service industries more productive, and that will drive underlying growth. But we have to deal sensibly with debt. Economic summits tend to get hijacked by politics, but if this one nudges our political leaders to understand that debts must be tackled head on, it will have done a useful job. - The Independent
Drones showcased at Paris Air Show
TODAY IN HISTORY
Aerospace companies from the US, Europe and Israel will exhibit some of the latest unmanned aerial technology at the 51st Paris Air Show MALE UAS Airbus, Dassault and Finmeccanica seeking to build next generation drone to meet European armed forces’ requirements. Israel discussing cooperation on project
MALE = Medium-altitude long-endurance
UAS = Unmanned Aerial System
FROM OUR ARCHIVES
Predator B “Guardian”: Unarmed, extended-range maritime patrol variant of US Air Force’s combatproven MQ-9 Reaper. Endurance 27 hours
Drones not to scale SeaVue marine surveillance radar in ventral radome
Predator C “Avenger”: Stealthy, jet-powered drone under development, capable of long-range reconnaissance and precision strike missions Predator XP Unarmed, export version of MQ-1 Predator
Watchkeeper: Modified version of Israeli-made Hermes 450 Source: Aviation Week, Airbus, General Atomics
Advanced Cockpit GCS Ground control station for remote piloting of Predator drones Graphic News /
Graphics
QATABI INAUGURATES SIX-DAY ARAB ISLAMIC EXHIBITION
MUSCAT: The execution works of Khudh Al Masarrat water lane projects in Dhahira region will bSheikh Abdullah bin Ali Al Qatabi, president of the Majlis Al Shura, formally inaugurated the six-day Arab and Islamic Exhibition at the Oman International Exhibition Centre yesterday. Qatabi, after touring the exhibition, said he was pleased with what he had seen and hope it would allow a good opportunity to promote items from Arab and Islamic countries. He praised the Omani pavilion which he said would help citizens to learn about the local industrial products. The opening ceremony was attended by a number of ministers, the visiting Iranian mines and minerals minister, undersecretaries, honourable members of the State Council, members of the Majlis Al Shura, government and private sector officials and representatives of participating companies. The exhibition, which is the first of its kind, has been organised by Oman Chamber of Commerce and Industry (OCCI), in collaboration with Arabian Expo Company. It will be on until May 22.
1064 Coimbra, Portugal falls to Ferdinand, king of Castile.
1790
Civil war breaks out in Martinique.
1863
At the Battle of Brandy Station in Virginia, Union and Confederate cavalries clash in the largest cavalry battle of the Civil War.
1923
Bulgaria’s government is overthrown by the military.
1945
Japanese Premier Kantaro Suzuki declares that Japan will fight to the last rather than accept unconditional surrender.
1986
NASA publishes a report on the Challenger accident.
HISTORYNET.COM